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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

1. Busy people want to look like they have a mission. Productive people have a mission for their lives.
Busy people hide their doubt about the destination of their lives by acting confident in their little steps.

Productive people allow others to see the doubt in their little steps because they are clear on the destination.

2. Busy people have many priorities. Productive people have few priorities
Nobody is ever too busy, if they care they will make time. Life is a question of priorities. If you have 3 priorities, you have priorities. If you have 25 priorities, you have a mess.

The pareto principle is that 80% of your desired results come from 20% of your activity. Henry Ford built a fortune not by building better cars, but by building a better system for making cars. Busy people try to make better cars, productive people develop better systems for making cars.

If you don’t say “no” to most things, you are diving your life up into millions of little pieces spread out amongst other people’s priorities. Integrity is that your values are clear and that your time is going to serve those values.

4. Busy people focus on action. Productive people focus on clarity before action
To focus on the top 20% of activities, you must gain clarity about what those activities are for yourself. The greatest resource you will ever have to guide you to live a good life is your own personal experience – if well documented. Sadly, most people only document their life in facebook status updates. Keep a diary and take 5 minutes every day to reflect on the past day, on what worked, on what didn’t work; and some time on what inspires you.

5. Busy people keep all doors open. Productive people close doors
As a young person it is good to open options. It is good to want to travel, to learn languages, to climb mountains, to go to university, to work in tech, to live in another country. However, there comes a point in life where one must let go of most options and focus. If my goal this year is to learn spanish – I will speak spanish at the end of the year. If my goal this year is to speak spanish, earn 30% more, travel to 10 countries, get fit, find a girlfriend, go to all the concerts… I will not speak spanish at the end of this year.

6. Busy people talk about how busy they are. Productive people let their results do the talking
Stephen King says: “A writer is a producer of words. Produce words: you are a writer. Don’t produce words: you are not a writer”.

It is a clear binary thing. Talking about writing is not writing. Published authors don’t talk about their next book – they are focussed on producing it. I have grown to have less and less interest in what people tell me that they are going to do – I ask them what they have already done. Past performance is the only good indicator of future performance.

Feeling productive is not the same as being productive. This is important. I can feel productive while I’m playing minecraft. I can feel unproductive while I’m producing an excellent blog post that will help others take better actions.

7. Busy people talk about how little time they have. Productive people make time for what is important
Any time we spend on excuses is time not spent on creation. If you allow yourself to practice excuses, you will get better and better at excuses. Productive people don’t use time as an excuse. An action either supports their highest values and mission, or it does not. If it does not, they don’t do it – even if they have a whole day off.

There is an Irish saying: “It is better to do something than nothing”.

This is a lie! It is better to do nothing than to do an action that doesn’t connect with your highest values. Sit still.

8. Busy people multitask. Productive people focus
Productive people know about focus.

Do you know about the Pomodoro technique? It is brutal, but it is effective. Identify a task to be done (for instance, write this blog post). Set a timer to 20 minutes. Work on the task until the time sounds. Any distraction (I must check email, I must get some water, I must go to the bathroom) and you reset the timer to 20. How many pomodoros can you complete in a day?

9. Busy people respond quickly to emails. Productive people take their time
Email is a handy list of priorities. The problem: they are other people’s priorities, not yours. If you respond to every email, you are dividing up your life into a thousand tiny bits that serve other people’s priorities.

There are 3 choices when you first review your email inbox: Delete, Do, Defer. This is not a post on email management, here are a few on managing email overload from Gigaom, Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur.

10. Busy people want other people to be busy. Productive people want others to be effective
Busy managers measure hours of activity, productive managers measure output. Busy managers are frustrated by others looking relaxed, looking like they have time, looking like they are enjoying their work. Productive managers love seeing others enjoy their work, love creating an environment in which others can excel.

Busy people are frustrated. They want to be valued for their effort, not for their results.

There is a Hindu saying: “We have a right to our labour, not to the fruits of our labour”.

We have a right to enjoy being excellent at our work, not a right to enjoy the car, the house, the money that comes from doing good work. Productivity is about valuing the journey towards excellence, not any moment of activity.

11. Busy people talk about how they will change. Productive people are making those changes.
Kilian Jornet doesn’t spend much time talking about what he will do. He talks about what he has done, what he has learnt, what inspires him.

Spend less time talking about what you will do and dedicate that time to creating the first step. What can you do now that requires the approval of nobody else? What can you do with the resources, knowledge and support that you have now? Do that. It is amazing how the universe rewards the person who stops talking and begins.

We are born with incredible potential. At the age of 20, the best compliment that can be paid is that you have a lot of potential. At the age of 30, it is still ok. At 40, you have a lot of potential is becoming an insult. At 60, telling someone that they have a lot of potential is probably the cruelest insult that can be made about their life.

Don’t let your potential go to waste. Create something amazing. This is its own reward.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Every so often the landscape of the watch industry shifts: a key brand gets sold to a major watch group and the balance of power changes ever so slightly. In the few years since we last covered the big groups’ holdings, some important changes have occurred: Harry Winston is now part of the Swatch Group, Kering has acquired Ulysse Nardin, and both Citizen Group and Citychamp have made inroads into the Swiss watch world.

Based in Bienne, Switzerland, the Swatch Group is the largest watch company in the world. Of the 8.46 billion Swiss francs ($9.04 billion) in net sales that it reported for 2013, SF8.17 billion ($8.74 billion) came from watches and jewelry. The publicly traded company owns 18 watch brands spanning the entire price spectrum. Breguet is the most expensive among them, while Omega generates the most revenue and is the third-largest Swiss watch brand.

Swatch Sistem51

The Swatch Group is the most powerful company in the Swiss watch industry due to the many components makers it owns. Thanks above all to ETA, its movement-production company, the Swatch Group is far and away the top supplier of watch movements to the Swiss industry. It also owns Nivarox-FAR, the top supplier of hairsprings. In keeping with a 2013 ruling by COMCO (the Swiss Competition Commission), the Swatch Group will gradually slow its sales of mechanical movements to outside companies between now and 2020, though it will continue to supply escapements to third parties.

Harry Winston Project Z8.

The Swatch Group made a notable acquisition in 2013 when it bought Harry Winston. Not only does the purchase give the Swatch Group added strength in the jewelry category, which has been a minor part of the group’s business, it also gives the company greater access to the world diamond market. This year, the group won a lawsuit with Tiffany & Co. over production of Tiffany brand watches; consequently the Swatch Group no longer manufactures watches under this marque.

According to the 2013 annual report, the Swatch Group has 184 subsidiary companies. At the end of 2013, the group had 33,590 employees.

Compagnie Financière Richemont SA is a leading player across a range of luxury products. It markets 20 brands, 13 of which produce watches; but by sales, it is predominantly a luxury watch group. Net sales for fiscal 2014 (which ended March 31, 2014) totaled 10.65 billion euros ($13.77 billion).

A. Lange & Söhne

Richemont’s brands are grouped into divisions. The Specialist Watchmakers division is comprised of A. Lange & Söhne, Baume & Mercier, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Officine Panerai, Piaget, Ralph Lauren, Roger Dubuis and Vacheron Constantin. The Jewelry Maisons are Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. Cartier is the largest brand in Richemont’s portfolio and the number-two watch brand in the world after Rolex. Until this fall, Montblanc was its own division; it has since been folded into the Other Businesses division, which also includes the menswear company Dunhill.

Calibre de Cartier Diver 2

In fiscal 2014, the Specialist Watchmakers division made up 28 percent of all sales, with €2.99 billion ($3.86 billion). Thanks principally to Cartier, 51 percent of Richemont’s revenue came from the Jewelry division. A further 7 percent came from Montblanc, and Other Businesses made up 14 percent. Richemont is a publicly traded company and is based in Geneva. In fiscal 2014, it averaged 29,101 employees.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA is the largest luxury-goods group in the world. The conglomerate owns dozens of brands in the liquor, cosmetics, fashion, and watches and jewelry businesses. It also has an extensive retail division, with more than 3,000 stores worldwide. Based in Paris, the publicly traded company had total sales of €29.15 billion ($37.69 billion) in 2013. Its watches and jewelry division made up €2.78 billion ($3.59 billion) of that. LVMH has been building its watch division for the past 15 years; its most recent watch-brand acquisition was Bulgari, in 2012. Its biggest watch brand is TAG Heuer, one of the top-selling Swiss brands.

KERING is a large Paris-based group with a focus on fashion and retail. Formerly known as PPR, the publicly traded company changed its name in 2013. Last year, total revenues were €9.75 billion ($12.6 billion). Of that total, €6.47 billion ($8.37 billion) came from the luxury division, more than half of which was from Gucci. Kering has been building its watch business steadily over the last few years. In 2012 it purchased the Sowind Group, consisting of Girard-Perregaux and Jean- Richard. Sowind makes Swiss mechanical movements, which appeared in Gucci watches for the first time last year. Another significant acquisition came last summer, when Kering bought the Swiss watch brand Ulysse Nardin. At the end of 2013, Kering had 35,000 employees.

The Seiko Group is a massive, publicly held conglomerate that makes many types of products. It consists of Seiko Epson and Seiko Holdings. The watch business, Seiko Watch Corp., is part of Seiko Holdings. Seiko Epson produces some components and is the parent company of Orient Watch Co., Ltd. Seiko produces all the compo- nents used in both its mechanical and its quartz watches. While it is known primarily for the Seiko brand of watches, the group also makes high-end mechanicals under Grand Seiko (which it launched on the U.S. market in 2010) and a variety of offerings through its other brands. For the year ended March 31, 2014, the Seiko Group’s total revenues were $12.75 billion (Seiko Holdings’ were 308.2 billion yen, or $3 billion; Epson’s were ¥1 trillion, or $9.75 billion). Of that, ¥150.7 billion ($1.46 billion) were in watch sales. As of March 31, Seiko Holdings had 13,439 employees.

Fossil, Inc. is a publicly held company based in Richardson, Texas. It is a power on the fashion-watch scene, posting sales of $3.26 billion in 2013, 77 percent of them from watches, mostly fashion watches. Fossil makes watches under its own brand names and those of licensors. Its most recent acquisition was Skagen, purchased in 2012. While most of the Fossil Group’s movements are Japanese quartz, Fossil has recently made forays into the Swiss-made market. Last year it introduced Fossil Swiss, a line of Fossil watches with quartz and mechanical movements produced by the group’s subsidiaries in Switzerland’s Canton Ticino. This year the group added a Swiss-made line to the Emporio Armani brand. It also introduced a licensed watch brand under the name of fashion designer Tory Burch.

Based in Paramus, N.J., Movado Group International is a leader in the affordable luxury and fashion-watch segments of the market. In addition to its hero brand, Movado, MGI has two higher- priced Swiss luxury brands: Concord and Ebel. Nearly half of this publicly traded group’s revenue comes from its six licensed brands, a business that MGI has been developing since the late ’90s. In the year ended Jan. 31, 2014, the group had total sales of $570.3 million. As of early 2014, the company had approximately 1,100 employees.

Citizen Group is a major vertically integrated company, with its business principally in watches, machine tools, components and electronics. It is publicly traded under the name Citizen Holdings Co., Ltd. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014, Citizen had net sales of ¥309.9 billion ($3.01 billion), up 13.9 percent over 2013. Of that total, more than half (¥162 billion, or $1.57 billion) came from the Watches and Clocks division. At the end of 2013, Citizen had 22,233 employees globally. In addition to finished watches, Citizen is a major supplier of quartz movements made by its movement-manufacturing division, Miyota. In 2008, Citizen acquired the American company Bulova Corp., adding its watch brands to the Citizen stable. In 2012, Citizen moved into Swiss manufacturing, buying the movement-maker Manufacture La Joux-Perret and its Arnold & Son brand.

The Timex Group of Middlebury, Conn., is best known for its famous mass-market brand Timex. It also makes seven brands under license agreements, including two, Ferragamo and Versace, in the luxury segment. The company is privately held and releases no data on its sales or production.

Headquartered in the town of Genthod outside Geneva, Franck Muller Genève is a Swiss luxury group. Most of the group’s holdings other than the original Franck Muller brand have been acquired in the last 10 years. The Franck Muller brand is the star of the group and its biggest seller. Franck Muller Group is privately owned and does not release sales data.

Binda is a watch and jewelry company focused on fashion brands. Based in Milan, the company owns Breil, Freestyle and Hip Hop. Its acquisition of the American company Geneva Watch Group in 2008 gave Binda a large array of licensed brands. Binda Group is privately held and does not disclose its sales numbers.

Citychamp Watch & Jewellery Group Limited, formerly known as China Haidian, has recently become a force on the international watch scene. The Hong Kong-based company has a strong position in the Chinese market with its brands Rossini and Ebohr. But in the last few years it has begun to acquire international brands as well. They include the Swiss brands Corum, which Citychamp purchased in 2013, and Eterna, acquired in 2011. Last year, Citychamp acquired the Swiss Dreyfuss Group and its brands, including Rotary.

Corum Admiral’s Cup Ac-One 45 Regatta

Citychamp is a public company. In 2013 it had revenues of 3.176 billion Hong Kong dollars ($409.8 million U.S.). At the end of 2013, the group had approximately 3,000 employees in Greater China and 200 in Switzerland.

The Festina Group is a private company based in Barcelona and owned by Miguel Rodriguez. Its key brands are Festina and Perrelet. Most of its brands are in the middle price range; two of them, Perrelet and L.Leroy, are in the luxury segment. Festina Group also owns Soprod, which makes movements for a number of Swiss brands, and the high-horology complications maker MHVJ. The Festina Group does not make its sales figures public.

* Watches are produced under a license agreement with the brand owner.** The company is a joint venture between the group and the brand.

You just have to pay $4,250 for the privilege

Leica cameras have often required significant compromises. The flagship M line has a staggeringly high price point and doesn't have any modern photographic conveniences, like autofocus, autoexposure, or Wi-Fi connectivity. Leica's other cameras also have high price tags, but are way behind in terms of ergonomics or image quality. Still, Leica devotees are passionate and many wouldn't use any other camera. (They also tend to be very deep pocketed.)

Now Leica is giving them a camera that doesn't compromise on either modern capabilities, image quality, or the handling and shooting experience that's associated with classic Leica cameras. The new Leica Q is a fixed-lens compact camera with a full-frame, 24-megapixel CMOS image sensor. It's a lot like Sony's RX1, but newer, and more updated. And with a Leica badge in place of a Sony logo, of course. It also has a Leica-appropriate price tag of $4,250 and is available worldwide starting today.

The Q's design is much more classic than the futuristic, ultra-modern look of the Leica T. It's pretty much what a person would draw if you asked them to sketch a camera, and it's right in line with the retro aesthetic of Leica's M line. Instead of being machined from a single piece of aluminum, like the T, the Q is made up of different pieces of magnesium and aluminum. It was designed in-house, unlike the T that was designed by Audi.

The lens on the Leica Q is a photographer's dream. It's a 28mm, f/1.7 aperture Summilux with optical image stabilization. All of the Leica Q's lens controls are on the lens itself, much like the M series, making it easy to adjust aperture, focus, or focusing modes on the fly. Leica says that it designed the lens specifically for this camera and it has the exceptional optical quality associated with Leica lenses. That should mean sharper images, less aberration, and better quality out of focus areas (aka bokeh) than competing cameras.

Unlike the M series, the Leica Q has full autofocus and autoexposure, though it's also capable of being manually controlled if you prefer. In addition to the controls on the lens, it has a shutter speed dial, control dial, four-way controller, ISO button, and two customizable function buttons, making it much easier to handle in manual modes than the T. The Q's rear LCD is also a touch panel, so it's possible to control the camera that way, but the physical buttons and dials on the body itself mean you don't have to use the touchscreen if you don't want to. That's a significant difference from the T, which relied almost entirely on the touchscreen and didn't provide a great shooting experience as a result.

THE Q'S LENS IS A PHOTOGRAPHER'S DREAM

The Q has a built-in electronic viewfinder with 3.68 million dots, making it the highest-resolution viewfinder available. It's not quite the same as looking through the M's rangefinder tunnel, but it's bright and sharp and has a fast refresh rate. As far as electronic viewfinders go, it's one of the best you can get and it's sharper and better than the external attachment viewfinder for the RX1 or the Leica T.

Leica says it's using a modified version of its Maestro II processor from its high-end S line in the Q, and that gives the Q the fastest autofocus of any compact full-frame camera. The Q can also do burst images of 10 frames per second in either JPEG or DNG RAW. ISO ranges from 100 to 50,000, and the camera can shoot 1080p video at up to 60 frames per second. The Q also includes Wi-Fi for remote shooting from a smartphone or transfer of images from a mobile device. From a technology perspective, there isn't much that the Q doesn't have, which is refreshing to see from a company as conservative as Leica.

I wasn't able to use a Leica Q for a long enough time for a proper review, but Leica did loan one to me for a few days. (Think of these impressions as more of a "test drive" than a full review.) Shooting with the Q is a fun experience — it's fast and responsive, and the manual controls plus viewfinder make it much closer to working with an M than the T or Leica's other lower-end cameras. Autofocus is exceptionally quick and accurate, much better than Sony's RX1, and it can focus very close, making the Q a fun camera for macro shots.

FROM A TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVE, THERE ISN'T MUCH THE Q DOESN'T HAVE

The Q is substantial in my hands, and though it is much lighter than the M cameras (mostly due to the fact that it lacks any brass), it's solidly built and feels like a camera that costs a few thousand dollars. It's bigger than Sony's incredibly compact RX1, but the included viewfinder and faster lens with image stabilization are worth the small tradeoff in size.

Images captured by the Q are unsurprisingly stunning, with wide dynamic range and sharp details. Leica says the camera is ideal for street, architecture, and landscape photography, which makes sense given its fairly wide lens. I'd prefer a 35mm lens on a camera of this type, but Leica says the 28mm focal length was chosen because it afforded the right combination of lens size and aperture that the company wanted in this product. A digital zoom button turns on 35mm and 50mm bright lines on the LCD display and viewfinder, but all it's doing is cropping the image after you take it.

The large size of the Q's image sensor combined with the lens's wide aperture make it very easy to separate your subject from the background with a shallow depth of field. The out of focus areas are smooth and creamy, and the falloff from in focus to out of focus is clean and gradual. It's exactly what you would expect from a camera wearing the Leica name.

If there are any complaints to be made, it's that the auto metering skews conservative, leaving many images underexposed, and the auto white balance system tends to be warm under low incandescent lighting, which is common with most cameras. Both issues are easily addressable if you shoot RAW and process the images on a computer after the fact. (Leica even includes a copy of Lightroom with the purchase of the camera and pretty much expects you to do so.)

At over $4,000, the Leica Q is very much still a Leica and therefore still out of the reach of many photographers. (If you want to take the glass half full look at it, compared to a new M and equivalent lens, which would run in to the five figures, the Q could be considered cheap.) But Leicas have long been out of the reach of the average camera buff, making them aspirational cameras that one looks up to and hopes to maybe one day lay their hands on. The Q is a camera that actually deserves to be looked up to: it's a fully modern digital camera with great performance and image quality with a design that looks and functions great. If you're going to dream about owning something, you could do far worse than a Leica Q.